1. Technical Field
This application generally relates to communication devices having a user capability to participate in scheduling of future meetings with other device users. It has particular applicability to wireless communication devices.
2. Related Art
Computerized scheduling calendars are now commonplace. In a wired and/or wireless network of computers or computerized communication devices, such personal scheduling calendars may be interactive. That is, a meeting organizer may invite one or more other device users to a future meeting at a particular day and time (and perhaps place). In some circumstances, when such invitations are received they may be automatically acted upon by suitable software agents or modules so as to simply accept such an invitation if other entries on the invitee's calendar permit acceptance. If the invitee's calendar does not permit the proposed meeting, then a denial message may be returned to the meeting organizer. Of course, each individual calendar may be set up by its user so as to block out certain segments of time and/or to require incoming requests to be screened by the user personally before a response is manually made to an incoming request.
Current options for accepting a meeting request from a handheld wireless communication device are to accept or tentatively accept the request. There is no convenient method for an invitee to conditionally accept a meeting request (e.g., based on the response of another invitee).
For example, assume that Bob sends a meeting request to Alice, Eve, and Carol. Further assume that Carol is very busy and only wishes to attend the meeting if Eve attends. There is currently no method for Carol to indicate that her attendance is dependent on Eve's attendance, thus she must first speak to Eve to determine if she will attend and then choose “Tentative” or “Accept”. Clearly, this method is slow and inconvenient.